Page 227 - Third Book of Reading Lessons

226 THIRD BOOK OF
cial mockeries of her excellence, which the palaces of art present to us. She seems to open her arms, and invite us to "return!" to blush r the meanness of our taste; to rsake the theatre, the picture gal-· lery, the library; and to study character in her towns and villages, beauty in her plains and valleys, sub­ limity in her mountains, and wisdom in the economy of her mighty system. G. GRIFFIN.
5. GLENDALOUGH.-The lone and singularly wild valley of Glendalough, in the county of Wicklow, lying at a distance of about twenty- ur miles om the metropolis, presents a scene which, r stern and desolate grandeur, is in many respects unsurpassed. Huge, gloomy mountains, upon·which clouds almost continually rest, encompass, and in some places over­ hang, the silent and almost uninhabited glen. Two Iittle lakes, now appearing in the deepest shadow, now re ecting the blue vault, according as the clouds above them come or go,-a winding stream, and grey rocks jutting here and there om out the heath,­ rm its natural atures. A noble monastic estab­ lishment, round which a city subsequently rose, ourished, and decayed, was unded here in the early part of the sixth century by St. Kevin. The 1 ruins of many ecclesiastical structures yet remain, and " the long, continuous shadow of the lo y and
slender Round Tower moves slowly, from morn till eve, over wasted churches, crumbling oratories, shat­ tered crosses, scathed yew trees, and tombs, now un­ distinguishable, of bishops, abbots, and anchorites." ow w of the gay tourists by whom the glen is yearly visited, view these ruins with any other el­ ing than that of idle and ignorant curiosity! Their ears have been poisoned with the burlesque a d lying